Author: Neil Thomas
Darwin and the Victorian Culture Wars
As Alec Ryrie pointed out in his history of Doubt, “intellectuals and philosophers may think they make the weather, but they are more often driven by it.”
Darwin and the Victorian Crisis of Faith
Fleeming Jenkin (the distinguished Scottish scientist who with Lord Kelvin spearheaded the laying of the transatlantic cable) was particularly scathing.
Darwin and the Newtonian Metanarrative
People chose to believe what they wanted to believe in obedience to the then reigning intellectual fashion.
For Darwin, Timing Was Everything
Charles Darwin, as we saw yesterday, pulled off an intellectual coup against the major thinkers of the Western tradition. How did he do it?
The Ghost of Epicurus and the Doctrine of Natural Selection
The classical pantheon, lacking moral credibility, had become a source of embarrassment to thoughtful Greeks.